USS Cabot seen in August 1943 in Philadelphia.

1. She is the only World War II aircraft carrier left in near-original World War II configuration (including 40 mm gun mounts).

2. She has the only-remaining World War II wood-plank, axial flight deck in existence. (The last original wood flight deck to have been struck by a kamikaze.)

3. She is the last Independence class light carrier in existence.

4. She is the only World War II combat site from which famed Scripps-Howard correspondent Ernie Pyle reported that can be located in the United States.

5. She was the only aircraft carrier Ernie Pyle reported from during the war.

6. While aboard, Pyle wrote his, "An Aircraft carrier is a noble thing." ("My Carrier") column--perhaps the finest description ever written of an aircraft carrier at war.

7. Due to wartime censorship Pyle could not use the name "Cabot" in his news stories, so people across the country who read his column knew her only by the nickname Pyle made famous--"The Iron Woman."

8. Pyle was a friend of George Blaisdell, the founder of the Zippo Lighter Co., and after Pyle left the Iron Woman and was killed on Ie Shima, hundreds of Zippo lighters inscribed, "In Memory of Ernie Pyle 1945" were sent to the crew of the Cabot.

9. Due to carrier losses early in the war in the Pacific, President Franklin Roosevelt suggested the idea for converting the Cleveland class cruisers that were under construction into the light carriers of the Independence class.

10. The conversion-creation of the "nine sisters" of the Independence class was a wartime engineering marvel and a successful gamble as they collectively won 81 battle stars and accounted for hundreds of enemy planes and ships destroyed.

11. She earned nine battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation during World War II.

12. She owns one of the longest records of continuous combat sea duty in World War II.

13. Senator John McCain's grandfather, Admiral J.S. "Slew" McCain, ( at that point the commander of the task group of which Cabot was a part) ordered her to provide air cover for two crippled US cruisers that were being towed to safety near Formosa. With her sister, the Cowpens CVL25, the Iron Woman fought off repeated enemy air attacks. In one action, 8 of her Hellcats intercepted 70 attacking Japanese aircraft and downed 33 --27 of them in fifteen minutes! Word of her exploits spread through the fleet and when she returned to the task group after this action another sister ship, the Independence CVL22, sent her a message: "Salutations to the return of the wandering hero."

14. An amazing total of 26 naval fighter pilots, from two squadrons, became aces flying from the deck of the Iron Woman, including a few who were among the top naval aces of the war.

15. TBM crews flying from the Cabot participated in the sinking of two of the Japanese super-battleships: the Musashi and the Yamato.

16. She was hit by two kamikazes on Nov. 25, 1944; the same day that the Essex, Intrepid, and Hancock were hit by kamikazes. (35 members of her crew were killed.)

17. Two future United States presidents served on two of the Cabot's sisters. President Ford served on the USS Monterey CVL26 and President Bush served on the USS San Jacinto CVL30.

18. Of a combined total of more than one hundred light and escort carriers that served in World War II, the Iron Woman is the only one still in existence.

19. She is the only-remaining originally-configured carrier participant of the fast carrier task forces of Halsey, Spruance, Mitscher, McCain, Sherman, Bogan, Clark, et. al., in the greatest naval-air war in the Pacific in World War II.

20. She has been delared a National Historic Landmark.

21. She has been named to the Save America's Treasures program list of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

22. She is the only originally-configured World War II carrier to survive into the 21st century.

23. She will be scrapped 57 years after she was launched unless we are successful in our effort to preserve the USS Cabot CVL-28 as a Memorial/Museum.

Cabot flies her Homeward bound pennant in 1945: Well Done Cabot!

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